Abstract

James V. Forrestal (1892-1949) was a Wall Street businessman who played an
important role in U.S. military operations during and immediately after World War
II. From 1940 to 1949 Forrestal served as, in order, assistant to President
Roosevelt, Under Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Navy, and the first
Secretary of Defense. The Forrestal Papers document his service from Under Secretary
of the Navy to Secretary of Defense and include correspondence, memoranda, reports,
speeches, and press releases.

Description

Description

The Forrestal Papers document his service from Under Secretary of the Navy to
Secretary of Defense and include correspondence, memoranda, reports, speeches,
and press releases. The papers also include Forrestal's diaries from this
period. Forrestal's papers primarily document the progress of World War II,
especially the role of the Navy, and the formation of the National Military
Establishment (NME) to unify the U.S. military following the war, as well as the
daily administration of the Navy and NME.

Collection Creator
Biography

James V. Forrestal (1892-1949) was a Wall Street businessman who played an important
role in U.S. military operations during and immediately after World War II. From
1940 to 1949 Forrestal served as, in order, assistant to President Roosevelt, Under
Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Navy, and the first Secretary of Defense. He
was instrumental in the buildup of the Navy during World War II and an important
figure in the development of the unified National Military Establishment (NME)
following the war.

Forrestal began his career on Wall Street in 1916 as a bond salesman for William A.
Read and Company (later Dillon, Read and Company), a banking firm that was rising in
importance at that time. Except for serving in the Navy from 1917 to 1919, Forrestal
remained at William A. Read and Company until 1940. Because of his success as a
bonds salesman, he was made a partner in the firm in 1923 and became the "right-hand
man" of the head of the firm, Clarence Dillon. Forrestal became vice-president in
1926 and company president in 1937.

Forrestal left Wall Street in June 1940 to take a position as assistant to President
Roosevelt, serving as his liaison for handling the national defense program. Soon
after, in August, Roosevelt appointed Forrestal to the new post of Under Secretary
of the Navy under Secretary Frank Knox. The new position was designed to handle
contracts, tax and legal affairs, and to serve as liaison with other government
agencies. Congress had just passed the Two-Ocean Navy Act, and it fell to Forrestal
to implement the expansion of the Navy it required. Under Forrestal's leadership,
the procurement and production program facilitated the rapid construction of navy
ships and equipment, which reached record production levels, and the Navy grew from
158,000 to 3.6 million individuals. He also established public relations offices to
promote national recognition of the Navy's role in the war and worked with War
Secretary Robert Patterson to solve problems of raw material supplies through a plan
designed by Ferdinand Eberstadt, a close advisor to Forrestal throughout his
military career.

After the death of Frank Knox in May 1944, Forrestal was appointed Secretary of the
Navy, having already established his reputation as a highly capable administrator.
Favoring a business-like approach, Forrestal instituted a reduction of ceremony and
utilized business methods to manage the Navy and encourage production. To this end,
he visited the plants to inform workers about the progress of the war and the needs
of the Navy and formed the Navy Industrial Association to bring together Navy
personnel and significant civilian suppliers. To better understand the needs of the
Navy, Forrestal travelled to Europe twice and three times to the Pacific and
undertook a study of military logistics and strategy through extensive reading. As
Secretary, he oversaw the Navy in the last year of the war and the following two
years of demobilization.

After the end of World War II in 1945, Forrestal argued against demobilizing too
rapidly. Instead, he advocated a program of universal military training and
cautioned that the nation's military strength must be maintained to enforce a
lasting peace. He was, however, initially a staunch opponent of President Truman's
plan to unify the Army and the Navy into a single department of national defense.
Forrestal argued that the department would be too large for its head to have any
meaningful understanding of it, forcing him to rely too heavily on his military
advisors. He was also concerned that unification would shift the primary method of
defense from naval aircraft carriers to air force bombers with atomic weapons which
he felt would weaken American's military position. When President Truman continued
to support unification, Forrestal enlisted Ferdinand Eberstadt to develop a
compromise plan. Eberstadt's plan, which formed the basis for the National Security
Act of 1947, established a single military department called the National Military
Establishment (NME). The NME, led by the Secretary of Defense, combined the
departments of War and the Navy and established the Department of the Air Force.
However, the plan retained some of the original structure of the U.S. military by
making the heads of each department somewhat independent, coordinated by the
Secretary of Defense but not directly subordinate to him. The Act also established
the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central
Intelligence Agency.

In September 1947, Forrestal was appointed the first Secretary of Defense. In this
position, he was responsible for coordinating the activities of the U.S. military
and developing national defense policy. As the first secretary, it was Forrestal's
formidable task to enact the unification of the departments required by the National
Security Act, coordinating the activities of the previously-independent Army (War)
and Navy and overseeing the formation of the new Department of the Air Force. One of
his chief obstacles proved to be the structure of the NME itself, which provided the
Secretary of Defense with too little authority over the heads of the military
departments. Another significant challenge was obtaining a sufficient budget for the
department at a time when President Truman demanded a reduction in military
spending. The limited funds exacerbated the competition between the military
branches over resources. The challenges were further increased by the escalating
tensions of the Cold War during Forrestal's tenure.

Despite the difficulties, Forrestal identified several important accomplishments in
his first report as Secretary of Defense in December 1948, among them the
development of short- and long-range strategic plans, an integrated NME budget, the
definition of roles within the NME, the coordination of service procurement efforts,
and the establishment of overseas unified commands. He also identified several
factors that would facilitate further progress, including the significant
strengthening of the Secretary of Defense's authority as well as changes to other
structural elements of the NME. Many of his recommendations were part of the 1949
amendments to the National Security Act voted into law in August 1949, although by
that time Forrestal had already left his post. Forrestal resigned as Secretary of
Defense on March 28, 1949 and was succeeded by Louis Johnson, previously Assistant
Secretary of War.

James Vincent Forrestal was born on February 15, 1892 in Beacon, New York to James
and Mary A. (Toohey) Forrestal. He began his college education at Dartmouth College
in 1911 and transferred to Princeton University the next year as a member of the
Class of 1915. At Princeton, Forrestal was chairman of The
Daily Princetonian, a member of the student council, and voted "most
likely to succeed" by his class. After Princeton, Forrestal briefly held positions
at the New York World, the New Jersey Zinc Company, and
the Tobacco Products Corporation before beginning his career on Wall Street.
Forrestal married Josephine Ogden, a columnist for Vogue magazine, in October 1926. They had two sons, Michael and Peter.
Forrestal committed suicide on May 23, 1949 at the National Naval Medical Center in
Bethesda, Maryland while being treated for depression and occupational fatigue
similar to that suffered by service men in battle. Upon being informed of his death,
President Truman said "This able and devoted public servant was as truly a casualty
of the war as if he had died on the firing line."

Collection History

Acquisition

Gift of Josephine Ogden Forrestal in January 1953. Forrestal's diaries were purchased from the New York Herald Tribune and donated to Princeton
University by Clarence Dillon and Laurance S. Rockefeller in December 1952. Additional
materials were purchased from Ned Miller in March 2010 [ML>2010.008].

Archival Appraisal Information

Appraisal has been conducted in accordance with Mudd Manuscript Library
guidelines. Duplicate materials have been separated from this collection.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Adriane Hanson
with the assistance of Clelia Douyon, Grace Haaland, Brandon
Joseph, and Jamie LaMontagne in 2009. Finding aid written by Adriane Hanson in March 2009.

Sponsorship

These papers were processed with the generous support of the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Bibliography

The Forrestal Diaries, edited by Walter Millis, was
published in serial form in the New York Herald
Tribune and in book form by Viking Press in 1951.

Bibliography

The following sources were consulted during the preparation of the biographical
note: "Forrestal, James Vincent" by Jeffery M. Dorwart. American National Biography Online. www.anb.org Accessed January 14,
2009. "Forrestal, James V." Biography from Current
Biography, H.W. Wilson Company, 1948. "Forrestal Killed in 13-Story
Leap; U.S. Mourning Set" by Walter H. Waggoner. The New
York Times, May 23, 1949. "James V. Forrestal," U.S. Department of
Defense biography. http://www.defenselink.mil Accessed January 14, 2009.

Access and Use

Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research use.

Use Restrictions

Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish
materials from the collection must be requested from the Curator of the Public
Policy Papers. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright
questions.

Genre Terms

Related Material

The Mudd Manuscript Library holds a number of collections related to World War II
which may be accessed by selecting the subject "World War II" on the Princeton University Library Finding Aids Subject Browse Page.
Collections of particular relevance to the James V. Forrestal Papers are the
papers of Harold Gardiner Bowen, special assistant while Forrestal was Secretary
of the Navy, and Ferdinand Eberstadt, an advisor to Forrestal throughout his
military career.

Related collections at other institutions include the records of the Office of
the Secretary of the Navy, the Department of the Navy, and the Secretary of
Defense at the National Archives and a collection of Forrestal papers at the
Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C.